Re-referencing the map:
Another thing that I'm noticing is that it almost seems counter intuitive for the Brunian dwarves to migrate to Rockhome, since that would be moving toward the direction of Blackmoor (and the center of the "blast radius"). The Farend Ocean (over which the dwarves probably traveled to reach their new home on Brun) is quite large and might offer a bit of a buffer from the fallout, so it seems like staying on the wester coast of Brun might have been smarter. Then again the fallout might have been able to travel over the ocean with some ease (not having any land to stop its momentum) so the counter intuitive action might actually be more likely. Any thoughts?

I'm also starting to like the idea that the Denwarf Hurgon dwarves went back to Alphatia to find some ancient dwarven territory... if that's the case then I'll have to modify the blue migration path a bit to take the dwarves through mainland Alphatia. I may need to figure out exactly where the land bridges exist before finalizing the path.

I also have some questions for the group (and a couple of posters specifically ).

Havard - What can you tell us (if anything) about dwarven migration/colonization efforts during the Blackmoor era (pre-GRoF)? How much of the globe do you think they covered during that time?

karameikos wrote:Seriously, though, it's you guys who are doing the work. I'm just a pain-in-the-ass standing behind you and cracking the whip while shouting "MORE BOOKS! NOW! FASTER!"

Sounds like a line from a bad porno (but when are they not?) set in a library. ("Wanna check out my *CHKA-wow-wow* card catalogue?")

Seriously, karameikos, you single-handedly kick-started my work on Selhomarr.

Well I don't even know what to say to that. Although it's off-topic, here's the reason for the requests:

I'm in the process of binding a whole slew of older titles, including a heap of PDF's that I bought when TSR first started releasing them. You want a real cause for envy? Take one look at the OCR quality on the TSR ESD's of the FR (AD&D 1st Edition FR gazetteers) and compare it to the half-assed scans that they were cranking out when they finally got around to the GAZ series.

But anyway, among the many titles are the major "fan GAZ's." I already had a 2-binder set of the GAZ-F series. Already had a binder with the complete VOTPA printouts (I will NEVER regret buying the Dragon Magazine CD Archive when it first came out!), and already had my old printouts of the Shadow Elves ASC files and the Savage Coast RTF files from 1995/1996 in binders. But I didn't have the various "miscellaneous fan gazetteers" that weren't part of a specific series (contra the GAZ-F's).

So I've had your Cynidicea, Davania, Selhomarr, etc. books ready to go for a long time but never got around to binding them. And now that I was going to, I thought wouldn't it make sense to ask for the most current versions from the authors themselves?

That said, I am not looking forward to doing the AC 1018 Almanac, which will probably require 4 binders to do. Whose brilliant idea was it to format that PDF in such a way (and with the old gothic font) as to span 1367 pages?

I'm not doing it particularly efficiently; my method is 3-ring binders with page protectors containing the material (one binder will hold the entire Savage Coast campaign book, Orc's Head supplement, and SC Monstrous Compendium Appendix, or will hold the entire VOTPA & Known World Grimoire series). But the reasoning is that a lot of the official PDF's bleed almost flush to the page edge, which makes actually hole-punching them ineffective. And doing them with combs inhibits ever expanding them (with color map printouts, for examples) in the future. So I'm going to have a bookcase full of binders.

That said, in the past, I've found it extremely useful to have adventures in this format. The pages are safe, I never have to worry about spilled soda or pizza stains, and if anything goes wrong, I can just print out the ruined page again.

Chimpman wrote:Another thing that I'm noticing is that it almost seems counter intuitive for the Brunian dwarves to migrate to Rockhome, since that would be moving toward the direction of Blackmoor (and the center of the "blast radius"). The Farend Ocean (over which the dwarves probably traveled to reach their new home on Brun) is quite large and might offer a bit of a buffer from the fallout, so it seems like staying on the wester coast of Brun might have been smarter.

It's not like they know that Mystara is a sphere (or how large it is). All they know is that their current home is bad and that they need to find a new one (presumably in a deep cavern). If they did travel over the far end ocean, then continuing east would seem like a good idea if east was originally "away from blackmoor".

Chimpman wrote:Havard - What can you tell us (if anything) about dwarven migration/colonization efforts during the Blackmoor era (pre-GRoF)? How much of the globe do you think they covered during that time?

IMC Elder Dwarves have existed on Brun since BC 10.000 as per the Mystaros Timeline. The Hollow World Boxed set supports the idea of dwarven settlements on Brun in the Blackmoor era.

Uberstar Kazakhum founded the dwarven kingdom of Northern Delwing in ca BC 3500. By BC3000 however, this colony is under severe pressure from Orcs (Beastmen). I'd guess Kazakhum arrived in the Blackmoor region travelling more or less the exact opposite direction of the blue arrow on your map. There is very little canonical information to build on, but I would prefer having some dwarven clans in the southwestern part of Skothar during the Pre-Cataclysmic era.

Chimpman wrote:Another thing that I'm noticing is that it almost seems counter intuitive for the Brunian dwarves to migrate to Rockhome, since that would be moving toward the direction of Blackmoor (and the center of the "blast radius").

Post-GRoF dwarves ("modern" Kagyar dwarves) didn't migrate to Rockhome, according to canon; they were dropped there by Kagyar after he finished purging the species of radiation poisoning and made other cosmetic changes to them. It's never been an entirely satisfying answer to me (nor was the wholesale repurposing of the dwarves and relegating the pre-GRoF "kogolor" clans entirely to the HW), but maybe that could account for the oddity of them going back to Rockhome in your scenario?

Moderator of the Mystara and Greyhawk forums. My moderator voice is gray-green.

Chimpman wrote:Another thing that I'm noticing is that it almost seems counter intuitive for the Brunian dwarves to migrate to Rockhome, since that would be moving toward the direction of Blackmoor (and the center of the "blast radius").

Post-GRoF dwarves ("modern" Kagyar dwarves) didn't migrate to Rockhome, according to canon; they were dropped there by Kagyar after he finished purging the species of radiation poisoning and made other cosmetic changes to them. It's never been an entirely satisfying answer to me (nor was the wholesale repurposing of the dwarves and relegating the pre-GRoF "kogolor" clans entirely to the HW), but maybe that could account for the oddity of them going back to Rockhome in your scenario?

Yeah, strictly speaking for purposes of BC 2300, I'm breaking from canon on this point. The whole idea is to have a dwarven nation in the area during this period of time, so they have to have been there before Kagyar changed them.

2) I changed the route of the BC 2578 Skotharian migration. Originally it followed the BC 2630 migration and crossed the southern land bridge to Bellisaria, but I think the new route is shorter... and the BC 2630 route would have been considered unluck (at best) or cursed, since those dwarves were never heard from again.

3) I'm also toying with the idea that the western migration fractured south of Alphatia, sending some dwarves north to Hurgon. Those dwarves would later come to the call of their brethren in BC 2473, abandoning Hurgon for their new home in the Shimmering Lands. During the Rockhome era, some dwarves would "rediscover" these lands, naming them Denwarf Hurgon (in honor of their ancestral hero, and the original founder).

Chimpman wrote:3) I'm also toying with the idea that the western migration fractured south of Alphatia, sending some dwarves north to Hurgon. Those dwarves would later come to the call of their brethren in BC 2473, abandoning Hurgon for their new home in the Shimmering Lands. During the Rockhome era, some dwarves would "rediscover" these lands, naming them Denwarf Hurgon (in honor of their ancestral hero, and the original founder).

Bruces new blog articles on Stoutfellow also seem to suggest this possibility, since there are multiple references to centuries of dwarven occupation and workmanship (and some hinting of a much longer history in the area) than the 50 year Rockhome colonization would allow for. The name "Denwarf-Hugon" does suggest that Rockhome dwarves (in whole or part) do occupy that nation... but the question becomes "when did they first arrive there?"

It is possible that the AC 950 colonization is only the latest action in an ongoing effort (that could have spanned centuries). And even if this is the case (Rockhome dwarves colonizing the area since BC 1800), it still wouldn't preclude the possibility of an earlier dwarven realm in the same location. In fact, I think I like this explanation the most.

Sorry just discovered this interesting thread, any more info on the dwarves of the BC 2630 route that were never heard from again? Could they be still hidden in the underworld of Minaea?
Could any group of dwarves still live in Skothar or western Brun?

Edit: Did some research, I see that the western brunian dwarves are supposed to be the Kogolors? Aren't the skotharians too? Sorry if I missed something.
Also, Steven Wilson has arctic dwarves in Hyboria: http://pandius.com/hybtime.html, but in his version they are exiled to the north in 2500BC...
Also, do you think dwarves are a completely unknown race in most of Davania? going with James Mishller's Age of Blackmoor history of a high tech Mystara before the GroF would be safe to assume that some dwarven colonist (or at least tourists could be living in Davania around 3050 BC... (like this: http://pandius.com/ndavdwar.html) From this http://pandius.com/kwyth.html I also placed the Kogolor descended nation of Duargor dwarves in NW Davania..
I think it was Havard that put dwarves in nowadays Thorin, northern Skothar...

Sturm wrote:Sorry just discovered this interesting thread, any more info on the dwarves of the BC 2630 route that were never heard from again? Could they be still hidden in the underworld of Minaea?
Could any group of dwarves still live in Skothar or western Brun?

Hopefully work will start to cool down a bit... in the meantime I can say that I intended for these dwarves "that were never heard from again" to be the dwarves that we see as part of Adhuza in the Hollow Moon setting. So this is basically a shout out to Sharon.

It seems like I got over the major stumbling block I was having so I am hopeful that these will be finished in the next few weeks (or at least finished enough to release a version 0 product). In total I'm expecting about 60 pages or so. The PC book should follow (it's also in various stages of completion) but I only expect about 15-20 pages or so for that one.

NPCs are almost there. I've have full write-ups for each member of the Elder Conclave, and about a page or so of 1 paragraph NPCs. I'm looking to fill in perhaps another page worth. If anyone has NPC ideas they would like to post, please do so here!

I also have a few monster concepts, but am looking for a few more to round things out. Again, any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

I've decided to go with the 5E format for monsters for now - it's seems simple enough, and should be fairly easy to convert to other rules systems. I'm also going back and forth on a few sections in the Secrets chapter, as to whether they would fit better in the DM's book or the Player's.